


I Just Want You

by DreamsOfSleep



Series: Pepperwood AU [5]
Category: New Girl
Genre: Engagement, Established Relationship, F/M, Honeymoon, Smut, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:29:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7264318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Julius Pepperwood married Jessica Night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Engagement

**Author's Note:**

> Hat tip to the person who sent in the fic request on Tumblr for a sweet oneshot of Julius and Jess's honeymoon. I actually felt like I couldn't write their honeymoon without filling in the backstory of how they got married before that, so it ended up being a short multi-chapter starting right after Julius's proposal, going into their wedding, and ending in their honeymoon. 
> 
> Not sure how smutty this will be yet, but I have some fun stuff planned for that honeymoon chapter. If you liked ["Paradise Nick and Paradise Jess Take On New Orleans,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6844933/chapters/15625048) I think you'll really like this one too. Enjoy!

_Marry me, Jess._

Julius hadn’t really meant to blurt it out like that. He just couldn’t not say those words to her when she looked so gorgeous all curled up on her couch waiting up for him, couldn’t stand not being her husband for another second.

He’s not really a romantic kind of guy so he’s not prepared with a ring or anything, but he thinks that was a good thing because that means she can pick out the exact one she likes and he doesn’t have to guess or deal with the pushy jewelry store salespeople all by himself.

\---

They go ring shopping together. He sees her light up when she sees it. _A 1920s inspired four-carat rose cut diamond on a white gold band surrounded by diamond accents._ She subtly looks at the price tag and puts it back; he’s a pretty frugal guy but she knows he can’t afford it so she doesn’t ask. He goes back later by himself and buys it for her anyway because he knows that’s the one she really wants; he doesn’t want her to settle for some second-rate rock even though it does pretty much wipe out his savings account. She was worth it though. He wants her to have everything. He can’t give her the world, but he can damn well try.

She starts crying when he shows it to her and says it’s too much. But he says, “Don’t worry about it, Jess. I love you and I want you to have it.” 

He smiles when she shows it to everybody she knows. Her new favorite piece of jewelry.

\---

They fly to Portland the next weekend to tell Jess’s dad about their engagement in person.

Julius has only met Bob twice before and Bob never seemed to like him much so breaking the news was always going to be awkward no matter which way you sliced it. This was important to Jess though so Julius puts on his _I’m-in-love-with-your-daughter_ face and his _I’m-good-enough-for-her-I swear_ face and bears it.

\---

They are in the living room of Jess’s childhood home. He and Jess are sitting on the couch next to each other holding hands while Bob is sitting in a stuffed armchair opposite them with his arms crossed. Julius feels like a teenager asking someone’s father to take his daughter to the prom.

“We’re getting married, Dad,” Jess says, effervescent, glowing with happiness. 

“Him?” Bob says with a sneer. 

That hurts because he and Jess have been dating for six months, which yeah, might not seem like very long, but it’s still a pretty significant amount of time. Julius shrinks down in his seat and looks down at the floor, away from Bob’s eyes.

Jess simply says, “I love him, Dad.” There is no room for argument in her voice, even though Bob still seems really pissed about it.

“I hope you’ll be there to walk me down the aisle, but if you aren’t, I’m marrying him anyway.”

Julius looks back up and sees Bob’s eyes soften slightly. Jess always did know how to butter him up. “I’ll be there,” Bob says.

They all stand up and Bob gives Jess a big bear hug. “My little girl is getting married,” he whispers into her hair. “I wish your mother were here to see this.”

He holds out his hand for Julius to shake. He leans in close to him, out of Jess’s earshot. “If you hurt her, I’ll make sure they never find your body.”

Julius blinks at him. “You’d be right to do it,” he whispers back. 

\---

Once he and Jess are sitting in their rental car outside, Julius turns to Jess and says, “I’m sorry, Jess. I should have asked your dad first before I asked you to marry me. I know how important what he thinks means to you.”

She shrugs good-naturedly. “He’s just being stubborn. It was just the two of us for a long time, so he’s just being overprotective, but he needs to accept that you’re in my life now.” 

She reaches over to take his hand. “Don’t you be getting cold feet on me, Julius,” she said mock-seriously.

He squeezes her hand. “Never,” he says with conviction.

They remain holding hands the entire drive back to the hotel. 


	2. Wedding Planning

They decide to get married next May. May 10th to be exact. _A whole year away._ It makes Julius anxious because it seems like such a long time away and he just wants to be married to her already, but he doesn’t tell Jess that. Jess deserves one of those big, fancy weddings like the kind you see in bridal magazines or in the movies. Even though he doesn’t much care for all the fanfare and he’d marry her in a heartbeat just by going down to the county courthouse, he wants Jess to have all of it.

He tries to convince himself that it’s a good thing that they’re waiting. He already knows he’s going to spend the rest of his life with her so there’s no need to rush things. People think you’re crazy when they find out you fell in love and got married as quickly as they’re doing now. They’ll smile politely and speak glowingly about your ‘whirlwind romance’ to your face but then they’ll whisper about how your relationship is doomed to failure behind your back. He and Jess haven’t even known each other a year yet. He hasn't even taken her home for Christmas or to meet his family and they’re already engaged. She knows him better than anybody else in his life, but that's not saying much being the way he is. He doesn’t want Jess to be embarrassed to tell the story of them to all her friends and family. He knows he’s not exactly the most likeable guy, definitely no prize catch. He’s a schmuck who works too much and doesn't know how to do big romantic gestures, not the kind of guy Jess should really end up with, the kind of guy she deserves. She's the type of person people just fall in love with when they meet her and she could have chosen anybody to love, but by some miracle she chose to love him. She’s definitely the better half in this relationship and he doesn’t want her to suffer the slings and arrows from the court of public opinion because she chose to be with him. Their long engagement will give them more time to hit all those big relationship milestones and flesh out the story of them, a love story she can be proud to share with the world. It also gives him more time to save up for that big wedding she deserves. 

\---

He has to save up money again and there seem to be a million decisions to make that he never thought about when he asked her to marry him. _The guest list and the venue and the theme and the music and the place settings and the flowers and the food and the cake and on and on…_ All of it’s stressing him out but he doesn’t tell Jess because she should have everything she wants, the exact wedding she wants, and he doesn’t want to be the one to stand in the way of that.

\---

Jess is better at all this wedding planning stuff than him, but he still goes with her to keep her company. He sits next to her and holds her hand and agrees to everything she wants. _Jess always knows best._ If she really presses him, he’ll offer up an opinion but most of the time he really doesn’t have an opinion on anything. 

_No, he really can’t tell the difference between eggshell and cream. You mean white and white? The word ‘eggshell’ has more letters in it though so he tells her he likes that color for the invitations. In a practical sense, if you’re paying an arm and a leg for it, that seems as good a reason as any to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth._

_Of course the wedding flowers are twice as expensive as the flowers that look exactly identical on the other side of the store. They’re wedding flowers. That makes them twice as special._

_Makes sense that you need to pick a china pattern for dishes that you’ll never use._

He guesses this is just what people do when they get married. You need to do all this _stuff_ that he couldn’t care less about. He just cares about being married to her. But he pastes on a smile and suffers through it for Jess because she deserves a fairytale wedding and if all these details are important to her, they’re important to him. 

\---

Sometimes he comes home late from work and finds her fast asleep at the kitchen table surrounded by outlines and spreadsheets and diagrams, all her plans written out in her neat script with color-coordinated post-it notes for what has been done and what still needs to be done. He’ll pick her up to take her to bed, smiling when her arms go around his neck instinctually, nuzzling into him sleepily. He’ll tuck her into bed and curl up next to her, spooning her against him. He’ll marvel at how perfect they fit together, how right it feels to have her here next to him. 

He wishes he were better at all this stuff, husband stuff that he should probably know how to do, so she wouldn’t have to make all these major decisions on her own. He knows he’s lucky she even agreed to marry him in the first place, lucky he even gets to have her in his life. He’ll be glad when this is all over and they’re actually married.

\---

So he helps her make decisions when she asks him to and he tries to pick up as many extra shifts as he can to try and save up money for that big fancy wedding Jess deserves. That means taking a lot of shitty cases though, all the cases that none of the other agents want. It starts to eat up all of his time. He spends a lot of late nights doing surveillance and going on stakeouts trying to catch other people’s cheating spouses. He always used to pass on these assignments because he’d rather focus on cases where it actually feels like he’s doing something good for society instead of just wasting his time on petty shit that people with too much money pay through the nose for. Every late night he has to spend away from Jess, he thinks about her and all the reasons he’s doing this and it mutes out all the bad feelings in his gut.

It’s a rough couple of months. He can tell Jess is unhappy because they barely get to see each other. He’s never in the office anymore. He’s always out in the field on assignment and he doesn’t have time to get lunch with her like he used to. Most nights he doesn’t even come home until 6AM. When he finally makes it home, he just collapses next to her in bed to sleep for two hours before he has to drive back to the firm at 9AM to work his regular shift. They don’t get to spend any time together at all but he reassures her that it’s just for a little while, just until they have enough saved up for the wedding.

\---

One day he’s heading out on assignment again when he passes by her car. He finds her sitting on the hood, her legs primly crossed at the ankle, like she had been waiting for him. She lights up when she sees him. He approaches her and kisses her cheek. His arms go around her to hold her close to him breathing her in. It feels like he hasn’t seen her in forever. He steps back slightly to look into her face. His hand goes up to cup her cheek, his fingers gently stroking her skin. They gaze into each other's eyes and share a moment between them, moments that have become all too rare lately.

“Want to go for a drive, Julius?” she whispers to him.

It’s lunchtime but he’s got those extra cases to finish up. If he passes on them, it sets him back another day from getting them closer to her dream wedding, but he can tell in her eyes that she wants him to say yes, that it’s really important for him to say yes to her today, so he does.

He kisses her gently on the lips and whispers back to her, “Sure, honey, let’s go for a drive." Her smile is radiant and he knows he made the right decision.

They hop in her car and she drives towards downtown LA. They end up driving for a long time. He watches all the familiar streets pass them by. She must be driving them some place new for lunch that he doesn’t know about. He looks at his watch. He doesn’t think they’ll make it back by the time lunch is over. Mike will probably yell at him for taking three martini lunches on the company’s dime, but Jess seems happier than she’s been in months so he doesn’t mind. He watches the scenery change outside the window. The concrete jungle of the city changes into the dusty desert. They pass through the edge of town and end up way the hell out in the boonies. He thinks maybe Jess took a wrong turn and they might be lost. She never slows down or stops though. She acts like she is entirely certain where they are going. He sees them speed past the city limits and he looks over at her in confusion.

She grins at him and says, “I felt like going to Vegas today. How about you?” 

He can’t help grinning back at her. 


End file.
